


lies, lines, and the eye of the storm

by snowdarkred



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Multi, PTSD, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdarkred/pseuds/snowdarkred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There are bombs and explosions and blood, and that’s just another day in the life, isn’t it?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	lies, lines, and the eye of the storm

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: vague violence, reference to past traumatic experiences, and a hint of bloodplay.
> 
> This is a strange, almost disjointed little thing, and I wasn't even sure that I was going to post it until [goodshipophelia](http://goodshipophelia.tumblr.com/) told me to.

Tony lies. He lies to the mirror, he lies to the press, he lies to what few friends he has. The only thing he tells the truth to are his machines, his creations. Inside his lab, he’s at home, comfortable. Inside his lab, he’s unstoppable.

 

\--- 

 

Pepper runs on caffeine, with never a spare moment. The last time she took a vacation, Tony caused seven scandals and invented a new internet that the military immediately confiscated. It’s her job to keep him in line, that much is clear. Without her, he’d cause twice the number of diplomatic incidents as he already does and a couple of natural disasters as well.

 

\--- 

 

There are bombs and explosions and blood, and that’s just another day in the life, isn’t it?

 

\--- 

 

Steve wakes up. Steve goes to sleep. Steve gets up. Steve falls down.

Steve wakes up, and the world’s changed, life and time passing him by until he’s just a smudge on history’s fabric. One little kid from Brooklyn who did a few things and then fell away into the ice.

 

\--- 

 

Once, Tony asked for things. He said _Please_ and _Thank you_ and _May I have another?_ Now he knows better. The only way to gain anything in this world is to take it. Or to build it yourself. So that’s what he does, building the future. He jumps humanity forward, constructing computers and gadgets that make Microsoft weep with envy. He shapes the world out of revenge, for all the shaping it gave him. His robots and Pepper and explosions and a father he could never impress, never shock, always disappoint. 

Everyone wants a piece of Tony Stark, the man behind most of the modern tech advances. Everyone wants a peek at the world as Tony Stark sees it.

 

\---

 

Tony wakes up and sees his lab lit only by the glow emitting from his chest. He stares at the dark ceiling and thinks of nothing.

 

\---

 

Pepper scrapes him off the floor more often than not. She’s gotten quite good with the medical field kit Tony keeps in the lab. Her hands only shake when it’s over and she’s put him back together again. 

He thinks, _I don’t pay her enough to deal with this._

Then he remembers that, technically, he works for her now. She’s his CEO and he’s head of the R&D department, and they’re both happier for it.

 

\--- 

 

Tony draws in straight lines and perfect curves. He draws in 3D; he draws in pure light. He draws with equations and rulers and science. 

 

\---

 

Steve asks for a sketchbook and a pencil. They give him a whole art room. It’s artificial, too bright under the white modern lights, like everything else, but it’s better than staring at the walls. Everyone once in a while, someone in a white coat comes to see him. They talk for a bit, and scribble things in their notebook, and for the most part he answers them and tries not to think about what they’re writing down.

Steve was Captain America. Now he’s nobody. Now he’s been dead for seventy years and school children learn about him right along with Hitler and the stock market crash.

 

\---

 

When Tony was little, his dad was his hero. When Tony was a little less little, Captain America was his hero. When Tony was even less little, Obie was his hero.

His father was an asshole. Obie was a monster.

He meets Captain America, who is a douchebag.

Now he has no heroes, or so he tells himself.

 

\--- 

 

Tony drinks and fucks and sleeps and crashes and lies and catches bad guys.

 

\---

 

When Steve meets Howard’s son, he’s disappointed. He expected more from the man he knew’s son. He expected more from the world, really. But here’s this short little man, all waving arms and smug attitude. Steve doesn’t know anything about him, doesn’t want to. 

What can he say to a man that probably doesn’t know what true combat feels like? What can he say to someone who fights from a tin box? To someone who’s probably never felt blood and sweat drip down his back and get into his eyes and made his hands too slick to have proper purchase and wondered if he was going to die that day? What can he say to someone who’s probably never woken up with blood in his mouth and death clinging to his hands?

 

\---

 

It’s hard to be wrong. 

It’s hard to be wrong about this, about the pain and suffering of another human being.

_Poor, poor Tony Stark_ , Loki says with a wicked smile. _Poor unloved Tony Stark, who tried so hard and always fell short. How’s the heart these days? I see your slow suicide spiral hasn’t ended yet. Let me help you with that._

 

\---

 

“Hello,” Pepper says when she and Steve are introduced. She radiates calm and efficiency like a small, soothing sun. Tony’s lab is complete chaos; she should be as out of place as Steve feels, but she isn’t.

“Hello,” Steve says, all smiles and flannel and 40’s charm. He likes her -- this is the woman who keeps Tony Stark in check. She’s legendary. He shakes her hand.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Tony swears when he sees them and drops a wrench on his foot. They ignore him.

 

\---

 

There is this edge to Tony Stark that is impossible to smooth out. Many a man and woman have tried, of course, and Pepper has probably come the closest, but in the end, even she couldn’t dull his razor personality. He cuts too deep, and eventually, he made her bleed -- metaphorically. She threw up her hands and walked away, but the next morning--

She’s right back where he started, only now he has the aura of a kicked puppy. He gives her a new StarkPhone to take to the board and a dozen metal roses he welded himself. She cuts herself on the edges of one, but she doesn’t mind.

She smears the blood along the line of his beard and licks it off again.

 

\---

 

Pepper takes Steve for lunch whenever Tony is being particularly difficult. It’s always the same low-key place, nothing like the dazzlingly upscale and obscenely expensive restaurants Tony likes to invade at any moment. And unlike Tony, Pepper doesn’t bring a bemused entourage of superheroes with her. It’s just her, her cellphone, the fake leather booths, and Steve. 

She orders cheeseburgers and fries and milkshakes and a baked potato. He orders the same, only double. She eats his fries and always gives him her dessert. 

It’s a break, a slight pause in his day to recover from Hurricane Tony. They don’t talk; they just eat their unhealthy food and breathe. 

 

\---

 

Steve draws people. Anyone who sits still long enough, and even quite a few people who don’t, is captured in his sketchbook. Clint is all bold lines and lazy smiles. Natasha has smooth curves wrapped around a steely center and hair that Steve could get lost in. Bruce disappears around the edges, always fading away and quiet. 

Pepper is bright colors splashed across the page, serene and exciting all at once. She’s the eye of the storm, the calm center.

Tony is violent pencil strokes and impossible movement, filling up the whole page until he is all you can look at. He’s complicated and messy and awe-inspiring. He’s rest of the storm, the beautiful mess that destroys everything in his path.

Steve sees them together, when Avengers have to make an appearance at an event. Tony arrives several minutes late and with Pepper Potts on his arm. Or, more accurately, Pepper Potts arrives several minutes late and with Tony Stark on her arm. She opens the car door for him and helps him out. He curtsies for the cameras and gives them a kiss.

He turns away and can’t explain why.

 

\---

 

Tony Stark goes after what he wants. He always has, and he always will. He doesn’t know when to stop, doesn’t even know how. He’d beat his hands bloody trying to tear down a brick wall, and then when that didn’t work, he would build a canon and take it out that way.

After being awake for thirty-five hours straight stopping terrorists from blowing up most of Washington -- the state, not the city -- Tony’s brain decides fuck it. He taps Steve on the shoulder and lays one on him. Kissing, that is. Tony kisses Steve.

Steve pushes him away.

 

\---

 

Pepper, bless her, always has a plan for when he doesn’t. She invites Steve out to lunch and waits, Tony hovering at her side like a nervous humming bird. His hands flutter through the air, from the knot of his tie to his custom cuff-links and back again.

Steve almost turns away when he sees the two of them sitting side-by-side at Pepper’s usual booth. Almost. Captain America is no coward.

“I feel like there might have been a slight miscommunication,” Pepper says warmly. Her phone buzzes at her, and she ignores it. Pepper never ignores her phone. She leans forward, and the movement is enough to draw Steve’s attention her hand under the table, holding Tony’s. It’s strikingly affectionate, and he realizes that he almost never sees the two of them do any coupley-things in public. PDA, Clint called it. 

“He kissed me,” Steve says. It’s a fact.

“Yeah, I did, and I’d really like the privilege of doing it--” Tony starts to say, but Pepper squeezes his hand until he cuts himself off and winces.

“Yeah, he did,” Pepper repeats. “And now I’m about to kiss you.” She reaches over the table, grabs his shirt collar, and _kisses_ him. Hard. Then she pulls back and tugs Tony to her by his tie. 

“I don’t understand,” Steve says, bewildered. “You’re--”

“It’s a crazy world out there,” Tony says. He looks happy and more than a little horny, and his eyes flicker between Pepper and Steve. His gaze is hot with lust and something else, something terrifying -- a storm building behind him and sweeping over them all.


End file.
